Title: The night she left me...
Taking this photo was no walk in the park. I had been planning a photo of this sign for a very long time, unfortunately, everyone in town shoots this landmark. I needed a few things, a new angle, different weather, and different settings than the average in the light meter. A few nights before I took my Fuji X100f to this location to look for my angle. I walked the length of the sign a couple of times, snapping a few shots here and there, and found that shooting this sign on the same side of the sidewalk is the "big choice" other photographers have made, but that just hasn't satisfied my itch to see a great photo of this sign. My angle would need to be straight on from the other side of the walk.
Here's the issue with my decision to shoot the sign straight on, there is no foreground unless wanted to use a flat bland grey road on this color roll of film. With my Mamiya 645 (the camera I wanted to shoot this on) im limited to an f/2.8 80mm, so lens choice is out. Meaning I couldn't warp the image in such a way that there is foreground, so I had to wait for something interesting to happen. The next week we got a record level of rainfall, I waited and waited for the rain to stop. Finally, at around 4 am the rain reduced to a trickle. So against my brain's wishes to sleep, I grabbed my gear and headed out.
One thing that is great about living in a small town is there is usually an understanding of curfew. Nobody in Utah is ever really out past 10 pm, which means I could be very deliberate on if I wanted a car in the frame or not. As I suspected an interesting foreground had appeared. The rain turned the ground into a mirror and now these reflections made something interesting for me to work with.
Now the third challenge with this photo was the exposure. I was using Cinestill 800T for the first time. In my analysis of the stock I noticed that its signature halations were cool, unfortunately, they mostly baked the signs so much that the text couldn't be read. I didn't want this, and I thought It could be an exposure problem so I took 3 shots, all at different speeds. Upon receiving the negatives I realized I was correct. The shot I took at a higher speed was a better overall exposure that made the sign both moody and visible.
This is a surefire portfolio exposure and I am very proud of this piece. It was no easy task and to get a shot like this on film was a real treat for me. I hope you love it as much as I do.
This piece will be on display and for sale at the Sears Art Gallery here in St. George, UT from April 21st, 2023 till May 5th, 2023.
Contact for prints and prices!
